By Ralph Cindrich
June 2, 2003

“I coached nearly every young boy in the town of Avella in some sport or another during these years. Many of them are grown now. They still call me Coach. They still come to see me to talk about the game.  And when we are finished talking, they are sure to give me the one-hand punch. It is a reminder again and again to me. It is as if to say: Life hands you a lot of punches, but it is how you take the punch that makes a difference.”
— Mario Gabrielli

Mario Gabrielli during World War II

“My ambitions were to play pro football. That’s all I ever wanted to do.”

Instead, he was our Pee Wee football coach. Some thought he was mean, and that the war, with his lost leg and all, made him that way. His wooden cane struck terror. If you jumped offside or screwed up, your head would ring for 10 minutes from one hard bang of that cane on your helmet. It never hurt — but it caught your attention.

I will never forget one cold and rainy November day.

Our team huddled around the warmth of the large coal furnace where we dressed in the basement of the American Legion building. Spirits were high — no one would make little kids practice in this type of weather. No one, except Mario.

And practice we did, but only after stretching on the wet ground and doing grass drills — diving in the mud, jumping up with knees pumping, diving back down, up again, over and over, and again and again. When the stretching was completed, the ball was positioned in the middle of a pond-like mud puddle. “Gentlemen (he called us that or “men”), we are going live.” That’s live, as in smashing into each other at full speed and rolling some more in the cold water and mud.

A few made a beeline for the American Legion basement. The rest knew it would it be worse at home if we quit. Ours was a town of first- and second-generation immigrants. No pat on the back for staying, either. Just a loud “Line up.” When it was over, we gathered all around him.

“You think we practiced today because I’m mean — I’ve heard your stories. But it was to toughen you. If it’s cold and rainy, or snowing and icy when you play your game, you will handle it because you’ll know that you can handle it. And the weather won’t be as bad when you play as it is today. If it is, the game will be called off. Now, get out of here.”

The Thanksgiving game was played in frigid weather on an icy field against a district twice our size and with double the number of our players. Our opponent pranced and tiptoed around in their pretty, matching uniforms, wearing gloves, sweatshirts and jackets. They looked like cheerleaders.

We owned them that November day.

Mario was a son of Italian immigrants and from the town of Avella in the southwestern part of Pennsylvania. Most in this community worked the coal mines and steel mills. 

He talked to no one about his war experiences or how he lost his leg.

A superb athlete, Mario was tough and always in shape. He could handle any Army training, but not everything about the Army. He was a man of quiet pride, and there were Army indignities he would never get over — they enraged and disappointed him to his last days.

He and his comrades were hauled long distances in crowded cattle cars — 40 feet by 8 feet — standing shoulder to shoulder like animals, with no seats, no restrooms and no room to sit. The trip in Africa took two to three days. “Sweat streamed down the faces of the young men next to me. We were crammed in either standing or sitting on the floor for the entire journey.” The men used open buckets as toilets. Mario can almost be heard screaming, “Open buckets, for God’s sake!”

Then there was the fear, the chilling part he would never forget — the uncertain and the unknowing part — that froze the inner core of his feelings.

War came to Palermo, Sicily.

“Sitting there in a bobbing tub of a boat with water lapping the sides, I remember looking up at the blue sky … sporadic shelling in the distance … the cold fear in the pit of my stomach. … I didn't permit myself to feel anymore. … I felt for nothing, cared for nothing … nothing except the 9th Infantry Division, 60th Regiment Headquarters Company. … It rolls off my lips with pride.”

His company was pounded by German artillery in Sicily, and he scrambled with another faceless soldier for cover. When the shelling quieted, he met Bill Craig from Class AA Trinity High School, a school much larger than Mario’s Class B Avella. Avella played Trinity in football and defeated them. It was sweet for Mario to remind himself that his team won 5-0, and that he scored all the points with a 53-yard field goal and a two-point safety.

“I was carried off the field that night on the shoulders of my teammates. What a feeling! We talked every aspect of the game. I won my scholarship to Waynesburg College that night.”

A promise of war — the football scholarship would be in effect when he got back — made by President Stewart of Waynesburg College. “What a great man, what a president!” Waynesburg was Mario’s ticket to his dream of playing professional football.

From Italy he traveled to Liverpool, England. While in a line, a first sergeant volunteered both him and a friend for the boxing team. “I was put in charge of the training regimen for the main boxers.” It was his calling. The 9th Division boxing team was undefeated and the division champion.

If you played for Mario, you gave it your best — all the time, in everything you did. No excuses. No lip. You just did it. Period. His was a strict Italian upbringing. “I did my job and I did it well. That's what my dad would expect of me, and I wanted him to be proud of me.”

A week to 10 days before D-Day, with the boxers out of town, Mario went to the staging area to prepare for battle. He was told to hit a tank with a bazooka at 150 yards. He had never used a bazooka before. He wasn't sure if all the others had intentionally tried to miss it but … “In everything I did, I always tried to do my best.”

He carried this six- to eight-foot “stovepipe” into battle.

From the staging area the 9th Infantry boarded a craft and landed in Normandy on June 10, 1944. Mario’s job was to distribute ammunition to the front-line troops.

“As soon as we started to move inward, we saw bodies of paratroopers hanging from their chutes in the trees. Some were covered with them on the ground. Gliders were all over the place; smashed bodies could be seen clearly.  There was no time to move them out. We also saw many German soldiers left behind. …

“I had guard duty. … Two men had their throats cut and were killed the first night. … I got my sleep wherever and whenever possible. I automatically wanted to sleep under a tree. No good, I thought, air burst would get you. How about the woods? No. Same thing.”

At 7 a.m., June 15, 1944, he was “ squeezing a few more moments of sleep” when the shelling started. Before nightfall, his life would be changed forever.

1st Lt. Beddard came by in a Jeep full of ammunition and ordered Mario aboard. Their orders were to establish an ammunition dump. They ran into a platoon of 13 men coming from where they had heard some shooting earlier.

“Leading the platoon was Sgt. Shultz, who was bleeding heavily. The next soldier also was bleeding; all 13 men had a bullet in or through them. … I'm ready to go back. Beddard checks Shultz and his men for their injuries.” And then he says it’s time to go. “Schultz … tells us that we are in no man's land … that there are snipers in the trees up ahead, as well as machine-gun emplacements. We had passed our own front line.”

Mario again mounts the Jeep.

“I was riding high on top of the boxes of ammunition when all hell broke loose. Machine-gun and rifle bullets went flying past my head. I jumped down … before the Jeep came to a full stop, and somersaulted and crawled to a small knoll in the terrain. I lit up a cigarette and started puffing away. I must have been puffing pretty hard. Someone hollered, ‘Stop smoking; that smoke is going to get you and us killed. You're giving away our position!’ I pounded the cigarette into the dirt.”

“It was hot, but a soft breeze helped me to cool off a bit. I watched the daisies swaying back and forth in the soft breeze. I remember birds chirping. And I started thinking about home, about football, going home.”

Two hours went by. Beddard started moving around. … We took one crate of the 81 mortar shells from the truck. A screeching overhead pierced my eardrums. Artillery! Heavy land artillery — 88 mm shells! Three fired sequentially. The first one landed over my head to the rear. The next shell landed in front of my position. I felt the ground rumble under my feet. I didn't see or hear the third shell. It hit right on top of me. I felt myself flying through the air. I remember hitting the ground.”

“I felt no pain. I opened my eyes to see that I was under a tree. My glasses were still on my nose, and I was thinking about a Humphrey Bogart movie I had seen recently. I thought this is it. I am dying. I said aloud, ‘God, don’t let me die.’ … I yelled, ‘Medic.’ ”

The medic arrived in a flash. He was the same one who had tended to the boxers. “Mike, will I lose my leg? He never looked at me … just straight ahead, saying nothing.

“My right leg was gone. It had been blown off by the 88 mm shell. From then on, it seemed that I kept dreaming of running. I could not stop running. Run. Run. Run!”

Mario was taken to a hedgerow field full of wounded soldiers. “My bayonet was stuck into the ground, a blood plasma bag attached to it. I looked around to see hundreds and hundreds of bayonets stuck into the ground, and all around were men crying and groaning.” 

He remembers fully awakening on June 22 in a field hospital. He was in a bed between two German soldiers. “I tried to get out of bed. … I wanted to get at them. I was angry. I didn’t want them around me.”

He arrived home in a wheelchair, with crutches, a wooden leg and his good leg in a brace. “The shock and grief was on all the faces of my family and friends. … But I was proud. I wore my uniform when they came. I was still Mario Gabrielli of Avella, Pennsylvania, and I was proud to have had a chance to do my part for a better world, for my country, for my family, for my sisters, for my town, for my friends.”

After some trouble finding work, he found a county job where he met his wife, Lillian. They had two daughters, Marsha and Nancy. He coached midget football and spent time working on his well-known Italian hot sausage. It had enough garlic to suck the air out of you, but I wasn’t the one to tell him. He then became postmaster of his town and kept that position until he retired.

And you can bet he was the best postmaster around.

Mario died of a massive heart attack on Aug. 8, 1992. We miss you, pal.

Ralph Cindrich is an attorney and agent who has represented professional athletes for more than 25 years.